


Catching Fire

by 100demons



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte | Big Windup!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-07-20 00:29:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7383661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/100demons/pseuds/100demons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s a filthy kind of heat that makes Tajima want to run back home and sit under the shower, soaking himself to the bone in icy cold water. The sun’s barely up and his cleats don’t even squeak against the grass, dew long gone and vanished. Tajima licks the sharp edge of a canine. It’s a baseball kind of day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Catching Fire

It’s a filthy kind of heat that makes Tajima want to run back home and sit under the shower, soaking himself to the bone in icy cold water. The sun’s barely up and his cleats don’t even squeak against the grass, dew long gone and vanished. Tajima licks the sharp edge of a canine. It’s a baseball kind of day.

“Oi.”

Tajima reaches up automatically, his hand moving before thought, and snags the glove out of the air easily.

Abe gives him a sideways grin. “Try that on, it’s my old mitt that I used back in the Senior League.”

It’s battered to hell and greased up from a good soaking in neatsfoot oil. The leather’s worn clean through in some bits and if he cracks open the pocket, he can make out the stitching of a hardball deeply ingrained. “Shit,” he whistles, long and low, and wriggles his left hand in. It’s a tight fit, but _soft_ and Tajima brings it up to his chest, feeling the curve of the deep pocket against his hand.

“Feels funny,” he says.

“It’s a catcher’s mitt, not a normal glove. I even did the kindness of breaking it in for you.” Abe crosses his arms over his chest. “Momokan wants you behind the plate today. I’m heading over to first.”

Tajima notices the long floppy looking mitt on Abe’s hand for the first time. It’s still slick and hard-looking. He can smell how new it is, even under the stink of the oil that Abe worked into it. He eyes it a little critically, with the air of a boy who broke in his first glove at the tender age of five. A winter long seasoning wrapped up in rubber bands and shaving cream, tucked underneath a bed, and maybe it’ll be good enough to play with.

“What’s Oki doing, then?”

Abe grimaces. “Teaching me how to scoop throws out of the dirt and look like I know what I’m doing. I don’t know, whatever the hell first base does.” He looks even more surly than usual, dark brows beetling over a thin lipped mouth.

“I’m sure you’ll only look marginally terrible by the end of the day,” Tajima says generously, ducking his head just in time to miss a thwack to his head.

“Ha. Lucky for me, you’re blocking today.”

Tajima blinks.

Abe gives him a low, hard smile, with lots of edges. “Make sure you put on a cup.”

 

* * *

“Forget about pitch calling,” Momokan says, swinging a wooden fungo bat up in the air and onto her shoulder, the fabric of her battered tee already black and sticky with pine tar.

“Aw, but look at these signs I worked on last night.” Tajima hunkers down into a crouch and sticks his right hand down the gap in his thighs, wiggling a peace sign over to the empty mound. “See? This one means a curveball but only when there’s a runner on third base. If there’s no runner, it means fastball high and in.”

Momokan looks thoughtful for about half a second before the bat swings down and taps Tajima gently on the shoulder.

“We’ll work on that,” she says finally. “In the meantime, just look over at the bench before every at bat and wait for my signals. And go meet up with Abe over lunch to go over the pitch signs he uses.”

“Yes ma’am,” he sighs, rocking back onto his heels. The plastic strap around his neck is hot and itchy and the black gear just seems to soak up every inch of the sun. He has no idea how Abe manages to last through a full game under all the padding, crouching down for every pitch under the baking heat.

“More importantly, we need to work on your defensive abilities. Once the other team realizes that you’re not the regular starting catcher, they’re going to try and run on you on every opportunity. We need to prevent stolen bases and passed balls. Always, always keep the ball in front of you.”

Momokan crouches down, throwing the bat off to the side. “Let’s say Mihashi throws a curveball into the dirt. It’s going to bounce and there’s almost no way you’re going to catch it cleanly. But you’ve gotta keep it in front of you, the ball’s still in play when it isn’t caught and they’re gonna run on you, batter and base runner. So you get down on your knees and jam your mitt between the little space between your thighs. Make sure you cup the back of your glove when you drop down to block.” Momokan drops down and shoves her two hands in front of her, Tajima just a couple of seconds behind.

He slams down into his knees, pads bearing the brunt of his weight and sending little shock vibrations all the way deep into his bone.

“And then I catch it?” Tajima hazards.

Momokan shakes her head firmly. “ _Don’t_. The job to keep it in front and near you so you only have to reach a bit to pick it up and get ready to throw a runner out, if you have to. You’re the backstop. Nothing gets by you, understand? If the pitch is off the plate, drop the according knee and lean into it.”

“Hm,” Tajima says, jamming the mitt down slowly, still on his knees.

“It’ll come with practice,” Momokan says, getting up and brushing the dirt off her practice pants. “Alright, are you ready Hanai-kun?”

There’s a long moment before Hanai’s dark head pops out of the dugout, bill of his cap clenched in his teeth. One hand is clenched around a five gallon bucket, sleeves of his undershirt rolled up almost to the cuffs of his jersey, the other holding an old black glove. He gives the two of them a jerky nod while trotting over to the mound, dumping the bucket over by the side of the rubber.

“He’ll be pitching fastballs mostly,” Momokan informs him, bat already back in hand and swinging. “And maybe ten, fifteen curves mixed in.”

“And Mihashi?”

Momokan sighs. “Hopefully shagging flyballs. He seemed a little upset at the idea of Hanai pitching today instead, even when I explained it was just to get the two of you up to speed.”

No wonder Abe looked so grumpy.

Hanai wiped his forehead with the back of his arm and shoved his cap back on. “All good,” he shouted, holding a ball in hand.

“Remember, block, come up with the ball and then throw to second. Shinooka-chan will be timing you. Ready?”

Tajima flaps the mitt at her and pulls down the face mask. “I’ll get it under two seconds by the end of the day!”

“I like that enthusiasm! And Hanai, twenty curves and forty fastballs is the _limit_. Any more and you get to run laps with the tires.”

Hanai salutes her. “Yes, ma’am.”

Tajima sighs and settles into his crouch, pulling the catcher’s mask over and on his face properly. Already, he can feel a low-level irritation just under his skin, like an itch that won’t go away. If this is how Abe feels like all the time, no wonder he’s so frowny all the time, with what seems like the weight of the entire team settling on his padded shoulders as he sets up behind home plate.

 _Okay, okay_ , he thinks, then sticks a middle finger down the middle, and this close, Tajima can see Hanai roll his eyes, flicking his cap with the back of one rosin-dusted hand.

“One fastball, coming right up. Hope you’re ready for this.”

Tajima’s seen maybe hundreds, thousands of pitchers winding up, either from the side off on third base, watching at ease, or from the batter’s box, waiting for just the right pitch. But this time feels different. Hanai’s arms draw back, dust rising in the air as he kicks his leg up. The entire time, his eyes are steady on Tajima’s, on the mitt he’s holding up, and Tajima’s never felt more aware of his arm before, how it shakes and trembles no matter how he tries to force it to steady.

And for the first time in his life, Tajima loses track of the ball. It soars out of Hanai’s hand, an arc of white light that flits from his vision, and for one wild moment, Tajima can feel panic clawing at the base of his throat, choking up his lungs--

There’s a sharp crack and a shock in Tajima’s arm, like he banged his elbow on a table and it’s vibrating up and down like a tuning fork. It doesn’t hurt, not really. It’s a strange kind of pain, a weird, warped echo of what it’s like to catch a ball normally. Tajima turns his mitt up to his face slowly, and in the dusty brown depths of Abe’s old mitt, the ball sits nestled in the soft pocket, like a lustrous white pearl.

“Alright?” Hanai calls out.

He lifts his head up, and even from sixty feet six inches away, he’s never felt closer to the boy standing on the mound in front of him, dark eyes shaded by his rosin-dusted cap. His pitcher. He waves back with his left arm, ball still clutched in his hand.

Tajima grins. “Nice pitch!”

**Author's Note:**

> I owe a lot to "In the Fire," an essay about catching (among other things) written by Roger Angell, which supplied most of the technical and emotional depth to this story. I highly recommend reading it and the rest of the essays collected in _Once More Around The Park_. Also, thanks to the many random videos of high school boys practicing catching drills on Youtube and now polluting the Recommended Videos for You part of my account. 
> 
> Originally written for Interhigh 2014.


End file.
